Plant cultivation device

Abstract

Provided is a plant cultivation device that improves cultivation efficiency and usability. A plant cultivation device comprises: a rack unit provided with cultivation racks on which cultivation units accommodating plants are stored as culture medium units; and a conveying device which moves along a horizontal movement path defined by a guide rail, and performs transport of the culture medium units and loading / unloading of the culture medium units to / from the cultivation racks. Multiple cultivation racks constitute a cultivation rack row, in which the cultivation racks are arranged at multiple levels in an up-down direction. The rack unit comprises: a cultivation storage constituted of multiple cultivation rack rows; and a loading / unloading station having a stock rack row, in which the holding frames of cultivation units not accommodating plants are stored as empty units. The transport device performs loading / unloading of the holding frames to / from the stock rack row.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application is a national stage application under 35 U.S.C. 371 and claims the benefit of PCT Application No. PCT / JP2012 / 054158 having an international filing date of Feb. 21, 2012, which designated the United States, which PCT application claimed the benefit of Japanese Application No. 2011-077742 filed on Mar. 31, 2011, the disclosure of each of which are incorporated herein by reference.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]The present invention relates to a plant cultivation device that includes a plurality of cultivation racks, which store cultivation units conveyed by a conveying device, the cultivation units being capable of accommodating plants to be cultivated.[0003]A plant cultivation device is known that includes a plurality of cultivation units that can accommodate plants to be cultivated, a cultivation storage provided with a plurality of cultivation racks that can store the cultivation units, and a conveying device that tran...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The plant cultivation device described in this patent improves efficiency and compactness by using a stock section that includes multiple stock racks arranged vertically in a multi-stage fashion, which helps to reserve empty units for each cultivation rack row and easily transport them. The device also includes a work station that allows for efficient placement of culture medium units and reduces the transport time of empty units, improving the overall working efficiency of the device. Additionally, the device can be placed in a compact way, making it more portable and easier to move around.

Problems solved by technology

However, when the culture medium unit of which the cultivation has been finished in the plant cultivation device is transported, as it is, to the exterior of the plant cultivation device in order to harvest the grown plant or when the cultivation unit with no plant planted due to the completion of cultivation in the plant cultivation device (referred to as an “empty unit”) is stored outside the plant cultivation device, troublesome work is involved to carry the culture medium unit or the empty unit to the exterior of the plant cultivation device or to carry it in the plant cultivation device.

When the culture medium unit prepared by loading a plant onto an empty unit is transported from the exterior of the plant cultivation device to the interior thereof, troublesome work is involved.

As a result, the storage efficiency is kept low for an extended time, which lowers the cultivation efficiency and degrades the usability of the plant cultivation device.

Moreover, since culture medium unit and empty unit are transported by different conveying devices, it may take a long time from loading a plant onto the cultivation unit to storing this cultivation unit on the cultivation rack.

In addition, the need to prepare the different conveying devices can increase the costs of the plant cultivation device.

On the other hand, storing empty units on the cultivation rack decreases the storage efficiency and involves troublesome work to carry empty units out of the cultivation rack in order to put plants in them.

This lowers the cultivation efficiency.

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